Fire/Life Safety Columns & Features Archive
Fire & Life Safety: Educational Occupancies Get Life Safety Upgrade
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Greg Kessinger is SD&I’s longtime resident fire alarm and codes expert. His column is the longest, continually running contribution in the 35-year history of the magazine.
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Do new school buildings now require emergency voice evacuation systems?
A. Yes, due to one of two major changes in the 2012 edition of the IBC/IFC.
The first change was to reduce the minimum occupant load from 50 persons down to 30 for Educational Occupancies. This means that a smaller school must now have a manual fire alarm system installed; whereas in the past, a one-room schoolhouse (and trailer-type classrooms) used 100 eyeballs and 50 noses to detect fires and smoke. Little Joshua...
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